Friday, July 16, 2010

Coming Next Week...

Nevada and Florida ended up being the winners of our poll on where to poll this weekend (Washington got the most votes but 386 of them were cast simultaneously so it got disqualified.)

Lots of stuff to work with in both states.

Nevada we'll have obviously horse race numbers for Senate and Governor, some stuff on what people think about Sharron Angle's views, a look at John Ensign's standing generally and against some hypothetical opponents, and polls in each of the state's 3 House districts assuming we're comfortable with the sample size numbers by district.

Florida we'll have primary and general numbers for Governor and Senate, and a look ahead to 2012 there as well which will probably be more interesting than Nevada because we're going to see how Jeb Bush and George LeMieux would do against Bill Nelson.

We get pushback almost any time we do one of these 2012 Senate polls but I really don't care. We did the same thing during the summer of 2008 and our surveys then suggested that seats in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, and North Carolina would prove to be in play this cycle and I think reality has borne that out. Things will change a lot in the next couple years but I think it's a pretty solid bet that the folks who are having trouble now generally are going to be the folks whose races are competitive next time too. And if you think it's too early you can just ignore them. And you can complain to us too but we're not going to stop doing them.

With Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon both coming out with Nevada polls this week, both showing good news for Harry Reid against far-right wacky extremist Sharron Angle, it seems like a low-value week to add another - it had gone unpolled for quite some time, yes, but now it could get lost in the news after the other two. Rasmussen has in three polls gone from Angle by 11 to Angle by 7 to Angle by 3, and nobody but Ras has ever given Angle more of a lead than 3, while Mason-Dixon had been trading off narrow leads for Reid and Angle but now has Reid up 7.

Meanwhile, Ras came out with some suspicious numbers in New Hampshire with nobody at all out there to keep him honest...

Sample broken down by region in NV would be swell. Washoe county and Clark county are like two different states out there. Mas-Dix shows rural, Clark, and Washoe sample sizes with cross tabs showing level of support in each region. It would be nice to see cross tabs with those three regions so I can see how your results stack up against the MD poll that came out today. Also there is a "none of these" option on the ballot in NV. Are you going to include that option in the question? That could ad a different element. What about "other" since there will be something like eight candidates on the ballot. Will respondents have to volunteer a name or will you give "other" as an option in the question? I assume you wouldn't do a full ballot test this far out.

NRH, we're at the whims of our readership. We'll tighten our rotation and use more of our discretion as the election approaches. It's hard to predict what other pollsters are going to do as well, though. Eventually, some of the hottest races will be polled more frequently by everyone.

I hope that in future weeks you will venture into some of the less-polled races like Delaware, New Hampshire, and Missouri.

There is a large number of potentially competitive Senate races this year, but Rasmussen's right-leaning results continue to dominate the discussion in the press. Any senate seat with the potential to flip deserves a look - they all count the same in January.

You know what I want to see, with all this talk coming from conservative circles that Clinton could challenge Obama, I would like to see a primary poll between these two. If Clinton were to challenge Obama in 2012 (she won't), how many people would actually support her. It would be interesting. Make it happen PPP. Give the media something to talk about.

Any chance you could poll Republican voters on if Brian Sandoval is elected Governor, who would you like to see him appoint to replace John Ensign should he resign, or 2012 potential Primary challenges to him? GOP replacements could be Dean Heller, Danny Tarkanian, Brian Krolicki, Jon Porter, etc... Just a thought.

An Obama vs. Clinton primary poll (as well as an Obama vs. Dean poll) has been suggested a number of times already. The suggestion usually gets shot down or ignored, though I don't think it's too outlandish.

However, I can understand why Democrats wouldn't want to give much attention to the idea of a primary challenger for Obama. Historically, sitting Presidents have usually survived primary challenges only to go on to defeat in November.

NRH, we're at the whims of our readership. We'll tighten our rotation and use more of our discretion as the election approaches. It's hard to predict what other pollsters are going to do as well, though. Eventually, some of the hottest races will be polled more frequently by everyone."

It would be good if you could also find a way to prevent people from rigging the votes in your polls on this blog.

For example, Washington Senate got about 400 votes from Oregon due to multible voting and you had to throw it out.

Same with the Ron and Rand Paul folks, who are manipulating every poll in favor of their candidates.

If people cheat on the votes, and then people whine about people cheating on the votes, then we'll stop doing the votes. It's not like we're somehow obligated to do them. No other polling company does.

Would it be possible to ask Florida Senate voters who their second preference would be if their preferred candidate were not running? (i.e. asking Meek voters if they would prefer Rubio or Crist, etc.)

Nevada and Florida. Perfect. Those are the two I was rooting for the most.

Of the two, I think Nevada has the most interesting races. You have the much despised Harry Reid fighting for his political life against a doubtful Angle for U.S. Senate. You have Sandoval going up against the son of Reid who seems to have an aversion to using his father's name. And Nevada is one of the guaranteed early states in the 2012 primary season. (Florida may or may not be.) Nevada is also small enough to poll the Congressional Races, as well.

Shoot it is probably too late but by chance are you going to poll other statewide races in Florida including Attorney General and AG Commissioner? I can only recall one poll of those races and would love to see some good data. Thank you for all that you do, PPP is one of the best pollsters out there and you let your fans get to pick were you poll as well, which is awesome. Thanks.

If you guys have question suggestions for states we'll be polling, they have to be in by early Friday afternoon each week (we're in the eastern time zone, so Friday morning if you're on the west coast) for us to consider them. We record and set up our polls to run by close of business each Friday, and start running them Saturday morning. We poll over the weekend and release the results in bits over the following week.